Second Battle of SOPA/PIPA
The Second Battle of SOPA/PIPA, direct successor to the First Battle of SOPA/PIPA, began in early February 2012. It was also in a way successor to the Battle of the Kill Switch as the rebranded SOPA/PIPA is a cybersecurity bill from the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, chaired by the same guy who co-sponsored the Kill Switch Bill. The Kill Switch Bill would have allowed the President of the Untied States to declare a cybersecurity and shut down the Internet. This time, SOPA/PIPA has been merged with this bill, and with the amount of lobbyist groups (read: bribe-givers) behind it, it is a greater challenge to the Free World than any it has yet known. Evil Never Dies ...but if good men and women do not beat it down every time it rears its ugly head, it will prevail. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) launched his second assault wave on freedom in early February of 2012, and he's determined to get what he and his bribe-givers want this time around. After the shelving of SOPA and PIPA in late January, Reid stated ominously "There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved." He clearly ignored the fact that the biggest issue raised was how this bill existed at all, and might as well have said "I shall return" or something similar. Senator Reid added that lawmakers "will continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans' intellectual property, and maintaining openess and innovation on the Internet." This translates from Politics to English as "We lawmakers will demand bigger bribes from the big corporate interests or quit working for them, and we will thoroughly ignore 99% of our voters' opinions. We don't give a flying f*** that we are outsourcing so much intellectual property in the form of technology production to the third world, since none of those companies have bribed us enough yet to care. We'd like to make sure that the Internet is OUR version of open, with no dissent, no direction, no purpose and no worth." The Congress Strikes Back Tomorrow's Dawn The new cybersecurity bill that is a combination of SOPA, PIPA and the Kill Switch Bill is the greatest threat to freedom since humans have had breath. Another notable fact is that the latest attack run by the Senate, under its new guise, has yet to be disclosed to the vast public which it affects. Clues available to us suggest it will be stronger than President Obama's cybersecurity proposal of May 2011. This back-up SOPA/PIPA alternative has been in the works at least since October 2011 right after ACTA was signed. The Obama administration held a classified meeting behind closed doors in that month with key Senate committee leaders over this, and that same month Lieberman, proponent of the Kill Switch Bill, said past Senate cybersecurity bills were considerably stronger than the White House proposals of the time. This was even putting into consideration the fact that the White Hosue proposal recommended the Department of Homeland Security (read: Thought Police) be given broad regulatory authority for cybersecurity matters over civilian networks. The White House proposal also recommends that the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) program be "developed in consultation with privacy and civil liberties experts and with the approval of the Attorney General." The Present Day A recent bill in the House, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act of 2011 (PrECISE Act), also empowers DHS in the case of a cyber "attack". We will not elaborate much on the irony of old men and women trying to tell us how to share information effectively, as the title is misleading. However, the power-hungry demon known as Harry Reid insists it doesn't give the agency enough power. PrECISE (Don't they have better things to do than make ridiculous law names that can be made into acronyms?) focuses in improving the information sharing of private corporations and DHS by allowing limited information exchange between the two. In other words, Harry Reid thought this was still inadequate as a measure to encourage bribery and corporate interference in governmental policy. He also believed it to be too arduous a process for companies to hire the federal government with that Act. Reid wants to expand the authority of the DHS (repeat: Thought Police) beyond currently regulated "critical infrastructure", such as utilities and banking, to also include Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and private networks. If he has such a thing for stalking people, why hasn't he been arrested for being a creep yet? Oh right, he's filthy rich and a Senator to boot, the law doesn't apply to him. Neither does it apply to Lieberman, who says the turf war of which government agency gets to police the internet was largely resolved already. There was ostensibly broad consensus that it was time to bring the big boys out to play in the form of the Thought Police... uh, the Department of Homeland Secuirty, right.... They are also going to get technical and intelligence support from the Military (read: SS) and National Security Agency (read: Gestapo). Now where does that scheme sound familiar from? Oh, just about EVERY TOTALITARIAN REGIME EVER! The Peoples of the Free World WILL stop this travesty before it can go any further. Conclusion The new bill is, like ACTA, being negotiated and constructed, and likely will even be signed, in total secrecy. If it does, well, the Resistance is peaceful, but if we are pushed beyond our point of no return... man's got a duty to stand and be counted sometimes. They can try to hit back as much as they want, but in the end, it is we who will prevail. The reason is simple, the purpose of Evil and the Dictators is to control everything, absolutely everything, for all eternity. The purpose of Good and Freedom is to make sure evil does not succeed. Therefore, since eternity is impossible as all things pass, Evil is never able to achieve a lasting strategic victory. Good will always triumph. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but the Peoples of the Free World WILL prevail in the end over the Dictators.